While organizations are competing with each other to improve the quality of products/services and ensure customer satisfaction, operational excellence is no longer a choice. Rising customer expectations, change in market trends and digitalization are leading to more challenges. The webinar conducted by Blue Ocean Academy on the topic ‘Operational Excellence’ focussed on improving quality and ensuring customer satisfaction using Six Sigma methodology.

The webinar was facilitated by Dr. Farrukh Kidwai, who has over 25 years of experience in Healthcare, Manufacturing, Aviation, Banking, Insurance, and Human Resources in multinational companies in USA, Europe, Middle East & North African region. He has extensive knowledge and experience in initiating and implementing Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies like Value Stream Mapping (VSA), Kaizen Events, 5S, 8 WASTE’s, A3, KPI’s, Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri), PDCA/PDSA to name a few.

Six Sigma is about obtaining excellence. Excellence isn’t a skill, it’s an attitude. Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1981.

It seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by:

• identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) &
• minimizing variability in business processes

There are mainly 4 levels in Six Sigma certification: Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt.

DMAIC philosophy

Six Sigma uses the DMAIC philosophy to improve processes.

• Define- Clearly define the process that you want to improve
• Measure- Measure the current behaviour of the process
• Analyze- Look into it carefully. Identify opportunities and weaknesses.
• Improve- Improve the process by eliminating defects
• Control- Control the improved process and future performance

Where is Six Sigma deployed?

Every sector is showing a renewed interest in getting Six Sigma Certified Professionals. Some of the important sectors that use Six Sigma for continuous improvement include:

• Logistics and SCM
• Banking
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Retailing
• Hospitality

Benefits for Organizations

• Prime benefit is having all employees develop a customer focus
• Build customer loyalty
• Reduce waste in operations
• Improve efficiency and productivity
• Effective Supply Chain Management
• Efficient team building

Six Sigma Certification Benefits

• Preference over other candidates in interviews
• A minimum of 30-40% higher salary for the same position
• Exponential growth in the career
• Become the most valuable employee for an organization
• Industry-wide knowledge to better position yourself for changes during your career

Why measure defects?

All organizations must observe the current state of their processes, identify the defects, and then move to the solutions. It is about observing the current state and visualizing where you want to be in the future.

Operational Excellence

Operational excellence is a high rate of continuous improvement in all your business processes to produce exactly what the customer needs when it’s needed with minimum resources. A collection of principles and tools that when applied collectively and systemically to a process will produce improved business results

Value stream mapping

It is a Six Sigma tool that helps you see and understand the flow of material and information as a product makes its way through the value stream. A visual representation of every process from start to finish. There are 2 key words in the journey toward 6 Sigma:

• Value: Steps in our process that an informed customer would be willing to pay for
• Waste: Everything else doesn’t add value to the customer is considered waste and must be removed from the process.